During this stretch of time, the two of them worked together to plete issions with a 100% success rate, piquing the curiosity of potential ts far and wide. On the way to the Amegakure bck market, Kakuzu finally refused to be hauled over S‐css–prisoyle by Senshi; the two simply walked there together, one in front and one behind.

  Sure enough, as soon as they arrived, they instantly drew the attention of a crowd of employers. A swarm of people surrouhem.

  “It’s Kakuzu and Uzumaki Senshi!”

  “Where? At st! I came here just to find them!”

  “Their success rate is insanely high!”

  “That’s right. This is my sed time hiring them.”

  “Amazing! Our vilge might really be saved now!”

  In the Amegakure bck market, talk buzzed among the many employers present. Everyone was discussing Kakuzu—the bck market’s legendary agent—and Uzumaki Senshi, its rising star. A team-up between the deathless legend of the underworld and its hottest newer felt like an instant guarantee of reliability. More astonishihey had never once failed a job.

  Watg the dehrong approach, Kakuzu’s face twitched visibly.

  “Ugh. Apart from that single-minded lunatishi, no normal shinobi would take on all these random jobs. Some of these missions are so trivial they could be handled by a few genin in any average vilge… Sigh… That madman is throwing his life away for money.”

  He followed along behind Senshi, sighing in his heart. Thanks to their widespread fame, they didn’t eveo visit the broker’s ter—employers came flog to them directly, mission slips in hand.

  Unlike Kakuzu, who remained grumpy at the se, Senshi was beamio ear, practically shaking with excitement. He called out to all the eager ts:

  “o crowd—line up and take turns!

  Listen, whether your mission is high-paying or low-paying, whether it’s extremely difficult or ridiculously easy—as long as the payment matches the difficulty, and it’s a ission-type job, we’ll probably accept.”

  “If you have questions during the trag process, talk to Mr. Kakuzu here. If you’re all set, just queue up, e to me, and hand me your mission slips one by one!”

  With that, the crowd did exactly as told, f two long lines. Upon reag Kakuzu and Senshi, each t passed forward their slip and hashed out the fee and timeline. If a mission en-ended and the pay suitable, it required only a quick discussion and firmation.

  Seeing this mass of people, Kakuzu’s scalp tingled. In his mind, he was doing calcutions:

  “So many missions…how long will this take? A lot of them pay practically nothing. Under normal circumstances, I’d just pick a few big bouhey’re turning the Ame’s bck market into a catch-all request board—somebody’s even got a job to find a missing cat! …Ugh.”

  Suddenly came the noise of crag wood. A newly formed Wood e appeared by Senshi’s side, who hahe e one of the mission slips. Kakuzu just stared, hardly reag to the surprise of seeing Wood Release in the first pce.

  “What are you doing now…?”

  While flipping through more mission forms, Senshi expined without pause:

  “I recall hearing about ninja who use Shadow es to go to the academy for them.

  So if some tasks are trivial and time-ing, why not use Wood es for those?”

  He had just unlocked Wood Release and was keen to put Wood e Teique to use.

  “That slip was from an employer who wants us to tutor a would-be genin in shuriken practice. Low-level stuff like that, I’ll just send a Wood e to ha. That’ll free me up for more challenging missions.”

  As Senshi spoke with uraihusiasm, Kakuzu felt his head spinning. So the Wood e wasn’t to reduce overall workload; it was to let Senshi focus oougher jobs.

  Eventually the flow of employers tapered off. Kakuzu was left holding a tall staission slips, feeling vaguely unreal. Meanwhile, Senshi had at least as many. Some ts that Kakuzu refused simply circled to the end of Senshi’s line and successfully handed over their requests there.

  “Kakuzu, hand over your slips.”

  Without thinking, Kakuzu gave him a bundle of dozens, inwardly cursing them as future headaches. But Senshi regarded them as dozens of new ces to bee stronger.

  “That’s a good fifty-plus opportunities for me to keep pushing toward my ‘humaails’ form!” he said with excitement, g the stack of papers in his hands. “Let’s go all out—grind until we drop!!!”

  Kakuzu: “!!!”

  All he could do was stare at the sky in silent misery. In the old days, employers would typically go to a vilge—major or minor—to hire ninja. But with Senshi and Kakuzu making waves, everyoarted treating the Ame bck market as an alternative. Knowing these two pleted missions fast and fwlessly, most found it easier to trust them than put in a formal request at a small hidden vilge.

  Gng at the near “diary-thick” file of mission slips in Senshi’s hands, Kakuzu felt numb. Senshi alone had done as many missions as a small hidden vilge’s eaff might aplish. It wasn’t strange for Kakuzu to single-handedly annihite such a minor vilge, but single-handedly matg its mission output? That blew his mind. And to top it off, Senshi had practically monopolized the entire bck-market job supply.

  “Kakuzu, you look awful,” Senshi ented casually, holding Karin’s hand as they walked.

  Kakuzu responded grimly, “I think we ’t keep this up. It’s too—”

  Senshi halted, sidering briefly, then nodded seriously.

  “You’re right, Kakuzu. We really ’t go on like this…”

  Kakuzu exhaled in relief until he heard the rest:

  “We’ve been too sck before now! We could totally e back here three times a day—m, afternoon, and evening—to clear out new missions. Just thinking how some ts must be anxiously waiting for us makes my heart ache!”

  Kakuzu’s face went from miserable to pitch-bck.

  “That’s not what I meant!”

  All the while he mulled whether he could feasibly use his bined Ninjutsu to kill Senshi; keeping this schedule, he would die from overexertion. Running missions at max load day after day for nearly a month had him exhausted. In the old days, Kakuzu fondly recalled, any bothersome partner he could eventually discard. But that wouldn’t work here—Senshi was too powerful to dispatch so easily.

  Nearby, Senshi and Karin were busily ting money. Having been around him for a while, Karin now also grasped the importanoney. his obsession, she’d decided that seizing massive rewards through endless missions was the way to go.

  “Hah…” Karin sighed after ting for a bit.

  Senshi raised an eyebrow. “Hands cramping?”

  She nodded pitifully. They had far too many s and bills to t every day.

  Senshi took hold of her small hands, gently massaging them. “Then take breaks iween ting, rest up, and tier that.”

  Blushing a little, Karin turned her head away with a huff. Ihough, she took his advice to heart. Senshi just smirked, reached over, and ruffled her hair again.

  “Cut it out!” she yelped, pounding her fists against his back. She was uionally trainiaijutsu on him—if one day she grew up and could throunch like that at an enemy… well, with Senshi’s body surpassing evehird Raikage’s durability, he could handle her practiow.

  Watg them bicker, Kakuzu let out a long sigh and once more tried reasoning with Senshi:

  “I think…we need rest days. Going like this, 24/7, will kill us eventually. A little downtime is crucial for better mission performance!”

  Bleam